1. Field of the Invention
Methods and apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to a home network, and more particularly, to preventing duplicate saving of a resource between universal plug and play (UPnP) devices that provide content directory service during content synchronization.
2. Description of the Related Art
Universal plug and play (UPnP) technology enables communication between devices that are connected in a network without a complex setup procedure, so that a service provided by a device can be automatically searched by the other devices. Therefore, when a user only connects to a device in a UPnP network, the user may easily use the service that is provided by a random device connected to the network.
FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a method of synchronizing content between UPnP devices that provide content directory service.
Referring to FIG. 1, the user selects devices, which are to be subjected to synchronization, using a control point 100, and the selected devices transmit resources of the selected devices to each other using content directory services 101 and 102 of the selected devices respectively, whereby the content synchronization is performed.
Information provided by the content directory services 101 and 102 of the selected devices is metadata about an item. The metadata includes a saving path for a resource. For example, assuming that the resource is an MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3), which is a music file that is often played by the user and is also included in a music file list and a musician list, and the saving paths of the MP 3 resource included in the music file list and the musician list are the same. In such case, according to related content synchronization technology, a receiver providing the content directory service receives both of the MP 3 resources that are saved in the saving path included in the music file list and in the saving path included in the musician file list, respectively, and the received resources are saved in respective new paths. Therefore, the problem is that a single resource managed in a device of a transmitter is repeatedly saved in a device of a receiver.